


Saturday Night at the Movies

by weakinteraction



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Meet the Family, Movie Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 05:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7879066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caine needs to learn more about how dating works on Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saturday Night at the Movies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OhWilloTheWisp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhWilloTheWisp/gifts).



The knock on the door shook the entire first floor of the house; Jupiter's reflection in the bathroom mirror wobbled for a moment.

 _Oh shit,_ she thought as she pursed her lips together and hurriedly finished off her mascara. She adjusted her skirt as she stepped out of the bathroom, but she was already too late; Cousin Vladie had got to the door before her. Now all the adults in the family were clustering around Caine, with the sole exception of her mother. Jupiter stood next to her at the end of the corridor. She was suddenly nervous of everything: what they were going to say, how Caine would react, trying to decipher what her mother was thinking.

The thing that was really throwing her off, though, was Caine's holographic disguise. He looked completely human. Apart from the disappearance of his wings (and there was another thing to worry about: what if someone tried to slap him on the back or something, and the disguise failed?), the changes were subtle: his ears were less pronounced, his nose slightly different, his geneprint mark had become an abstract tattoo. She'd known he was going to use the disguise, but she wasn't prepared for how different even these subtle changes seemed, how much she had become used to the real him.

Babushka slapped Caine's cheeks before turning to her, saying, "Jupiter, you didn't say he was so handsome!"

Aunt Nino asked him urgently, "What's your sign?"

Vladie had noticed the "tattoo" on Caine's neck. "Hey, nice ink, man! Nice. Ink." He attempted a fistbump; Caine grabbed his closed fist and shook it firmly. Jupiter's stomach sank slightly but Vladie didn't seem to mind.

Vassily stood on his tiptoes to lean right into Caine's face. "So, Mister Wise. If you really are wise you will look after our Jupiter, you hear?" Caine nodded very seriously.

Apart from Jupiter and her mother, only Mikka and Moltka were shy of approaching. Mikka looked as though she shared Babushka's opinion of Caine, and it made her too nervous to approach him. Moltka was very busy killing aliens, but after the hubbub had subsided he did glance up for a moment, even as he continued to mash the buttons on his controller. "Hi, I guess," he said, not waiting to see if Caine responded before returning his attention to the screen completely.

Jupiter coughed loudly and stepped into the fray. "OK, great, so now you've all met Caine!" She pasted on a big fake smile to try and cover her acute embarrassment. "Caine, obviously this is my family."

"Greetings, Jupiter's family," Caine said formally. "I am very pleased to make your acquaintance."

Jupiter gripped Caine's hand firmly. "And now we're leaving," she said firmly.

"Wait," her mom said, finally coming forward from where she had been standing. She came forward to Caine and gave him a hug, whispering something Jupiter couldn't hear in her ear.

When she finally released him, Jupiter pulled Caine as quickly as she could to the door.

* * *

They walked along the sidewalk towards the 'L'. The Sun was sinking towards the horizon, and they were casting long shadows; Jupiter kept becoming distracted trying to work out how the hologram could manage to adjust those as well, but it seemed that it could. The day had been sweltering and the air remained dense and humid even now; Jupiter had been worried that the skirt she'd chosen might make her legs too cold, but there was no risk of that. Perhaps on the way home she'd feel differently, but she doubted it.

"You came early," Jupiter said after they had walked in silence for a while.

"You say that as though it's a bad thing," Caine said. "Is it a bad thing? I thought it was a good thing."

"Oh, Caine, you have a lot to learn about Earth customs. Still, I suppose that's why I'm taking you to the movies, isn't it?"

He stopped and she walked on ahead a little way before she realised that they were no longer side by side. He rushed to catch up, and asked earnestly, "But why is it bad? Arriving early? In the Corps--"

Jupiter stopped and put her arm back in his before walking on. "It's bad when it means my entire family gets their claws into you."

"Your family have claws? Is that some sort of genetic regression thing? I thought--"

"Metaphorical claws. Entirely metaphorical. Well, except for Aunt Nino, sometimes, when she hasn't trimmed her nails." She smiled at him. "So ... did you like my family?"

Caine made a big show of considering the question. "Well, I prefer them to Titus and Kalique," he said. "And they're definitely better than Balem."

"A cockroach would be better than Balem," Jupiter said. "But I'll take that as a compliment anyway."

"Your grandmother thinks I'm handsome."

Jupiter glared at him. "Don't."

"Do you think I look handsome?"

"What? With the disguise?" Caine nodded. "It's weird; you look like you, just not quite."

"So if I was a regular human who looked like this and we'd met here on Earth, would you find me attractive?"

Jupiter realised she genuinely didn't know the answer to the question. She tugged gently on his sleeve to make him stop and turn around to face her. Looking up at him she decided, "Yes. But I would also think you were way out of my league. I prefer the real you, anyway." He looked a little too pleased at that, so she decided to deflect the conversation in a slightly different direction. "So how does it feel, being able to walk among the Terrsies without having to worry about wiping their memories if they see you?"

"Odd," he said after a moment. "Very odd. But not bad."

They had reached the station. There was no queue for the ticket machine, which turned out to be a good thing because Caine was inordinately interested in exactly how it worked. He seemed to think that her Ventra card was some sort of all-purpose ID chip; she decided that this wasn't the time to try to explain about her issues in that area.

As they climbed the stairs to the platform, Jupiter stopped and said, "OK, I've been trying not to ask but I have to know. Just what did my mom say to you, anyway?"

"She said you were a good girl--"

Jupiter scoffed. "That's not what she says to me when we're running late to get to the next house."

"--and that she knew I must be a good man, if you had chosen me."

Jupiter turned round quickly and hurried up the stairs to make sure that he couldn't see the glistening in her eyes.

There were only a few other passengers waiting, but they walked all the way to the far end of the platform so that they could talk without worrying about anyone overhearing.

"What exactly do your family know about me?" Caine asked.

"Very little," Jupiter admitted. "But I guess you could tell that from the way they pawed all over you. They've been teasing me for months about how 'mysterious' you are."

"They know my name."

"To be honest, I haven't been sure what to tell them. It's not like I can say, 'Well, we met when he saved me from assassins sent by the son of the woman it turns out I'm the reincarnation of, and for our first date we went flying over Lake Michigan'?"

Caine took a moment to respond. "I didn't realise that was a date," he said eventually.

"Oh, it was totally a date," Jupiter said.

Any further attempt at conversation would have to wait as the sound of the approaching train drowned everything else out. As it drew into the station, its brakes squealed and sparks flew up from the wheels.

Suddenly, Jupiter felt herself being yanked backwards. Caine had wrapped his arms around her and picked her up before leaping back to the far edge of the platform. Now he was looking around quickly from one side to the other, on high alert.

"Caine, relax!" Jupiter said, wriggling out of his embrace.

"But the electromagnetic discharge!"

"The red line's always like this." Jupiter stepped into the open doors of the carriage to make sure they wouldn't close before Caine could get on. She held out a hand to him. "Come on. I promise we're not going to get electrocuted."

* * *

They sat on the back row in the movie theatre. There were only a couple of dozen other people around so Jupiter had found it easy to steer Caine towards somewhere where they could have some privacy.

Caine munched one last mouthful of popcorn; somehow they had consumed an entire tub within half an hour of their arrival. When Jupiter had called him on how little she was having relative to him, he had muttered something about lycantant metabolism. "Explain this to me again," he said as he swallowed. "He does what for a living?"

"Takes off his clothes," Jupiter said, deliberately lowering her voice and hoping that he would pick up on the cue to be quieter himself. "People pay to see that. Other people. Not me."

"I understood that part," Caine said matter-of-factly. "But he's going back to doing that because his other thing isn't working out."

"Oh, right, he sells furniture," Jupiter said.

"But why would you need to buy furniture?" Caine said. "Don't your dwelling units just make whatever's needed when it's needed?"

Jupiter stifled a laugh.

"What?" Caine said.

"Nothing." She leaned over and kissed him. "You know, it's dark," she whispered in his ear. "You can turn off the disguise."

"But--"

Jupiter pulled herself up onto her knees and pulled him towards her for a deeper kiss, all the while fumbling with one hand to find the switch for the hologram. Eventually she found it; there was a very faint fizzing sound as it deactivated.

"Jupiter," he hissed. "You shouldn't--"

"Shouldn't I? There's hardly anyone here. And no one's watching."

"Not the disguise-- I mean, I'm trying to watch the film--"

"Oh, Caine," she said, as she slid her hand lower, "you really _do_ have a lot to learn about Earth customs."


End file.
